


monsters in the dark

by Fictionista654



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Anorexia, Dean Winchester Has OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Dean Winchester Has an Eating Disorder, Depression, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, OCD, brief mentions of CSA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 16:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18641890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictionista654/pseuds/Fictionista654
Summary: A long time ago, Dean made a terrible mistake. Now he lives according to a specific set of rules. How much he eats, how many times he washes his hands, even how long he blinks--they're all carefully measured. In the beginning, the rituals gave him a sense of control. But the stakes are getting higher, and the deeper he falls into his illness, the greater the danger to his own life.





	monsters in the dark

Dean’s constantly constipated, and the weight in his intestines pinches his nerves until his legs go numb. He can’t stand in the shower because he keeps almost blacking out, but he can’t sit because it hurts his ass. He’s cold even with a heated blanket, and he can’t carry his backpack because it’s too heavy. His life is circumscribed by limits: no more than x amount of calories, weigh in every morning and never in the afternoon, eight glasses of water a day, and one cigarette if he has to take the edge off. Two at most. Three on a bad day. Maybe an e-cig would be healthier, but Dean’s not gonna be that douche Juuling in the back of French I.

He notices the flyer tacked the library message board because it’s halfway between the study carrels and the exit, and he has to take a break. The flyer’s Pepto-Dismal (ha-ha) pink, and the font’s in comic sans because for some reason, club presidents aways think they’re the exception to the common law against it. MENTAL HEALTH STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION, declares the flyer. THURSDAY AFTERNOONS, 7-8 PM. FILBERT ROOM 17. At the very bottom is a link to the club’s website. Dean taps it into his phone and squints at the “About MHSA” page. It looks alarmingly like group therapy.

“As if,” Dean mutters. Except, he realizes, it’s Thursday. And according to his phone, it’s 6:45, which gives him 15 minutes for the 3 minute walk across the quad to Filbert. And if he goes back to his dorm, he’ll have to do work, and his head hurts too much for that, so. He also doesn’t know if he can make it all the way to his dorm without fainting, because he’s getting that floaty feeling, like the earth is letting go. And, screw it, he’s interested.

Filbert is an ugly cinder-block building from the 70’s, which Dean thinks was a pretty dark time for architecture as a whole. At least it’s warm inside, and, for the most part, clean. Room 17 is just down the hall, but it’s only 6:49, so Dean ducks into the single-occupancy bathroom and splashes cold water on his face. Sometimes it cuts through the brain fog and dissociation, but he’s still feeling floaty, and he’s not really sure his hands are attached to his body. He sort of has to shit, but he practically has to carve out time in his schedule to do that now.

It used to be so goddamn easy to go to the bathroom.

Dean washes his hands three times so nothing bad happens to Sammy, and clicks his throat, and washes his hands three more times, and clicks his throat again, and washes three more times. By the time he leaves the bathroom, it’s two minutes to seven, and his hands sting.

His steps slow down the closer he gets to the classroom, and he practically shuffles along the green carpet. There’s a copy of the pink flyer on the door, which is propped open with a doorstop. The door has a window, but it’s frosted, so at least this shit’ll be private.

“Are you here for MHSA?”

Dean startles and turns around. “Uh,” he says. “Hi.”

“Hi,” says the guy. He looks vaguely familiar, and Dean casts around trying to place the face to a name. Squinty blue eyes, a soft mouth. “You’re Dean, right?”

Dean shifts his weight and black dots explode in his vision. “Yeah,” he says. The guy is taking him in, and he feels that twisted sense of pride and shame. He’s not that dysphoric, he knows what he looks like. His face is sculpted almost to the bone, not a scrap of fat to spare, and he knows that can throw others off, even with his body hidden underneath layers of t-shirts and a hoodie and sweatpants.

“We have Intro to Film together,” says Castiel, and, oh right, Dean remembers him.

“Sure,” he says, smiling politely. “You’re the dude with the Jesus shirt. You, uh…you religious?”

Castiel’s gaze flicks away. “Not anymore.” His mind is clearly traveling into memory-land, and Dean, who never met an awkward silence he wasn’t compelled to fill, leans forward and claps Castiel on the back.

“Eh, who needs religion?” For a moment, Dean thinks this may have been a miscalculation, but Castiel smiles.

“You’re a sophomore, right?”

“Guilty as charged. You?”

“Junior.”

“Cool, man.” Dean almost goes for a hand-shake or a hand-grab or something but remembers just in time that normal people don’t want to hands as cold and clammy as his own. Coming here was a mistake, and he wants to go home. And then, fucking shit, his stomach growls. Not a small growl, perhaps an “I’m digesting” growl or an “I ate something that disagreed with me” growl. This is a full-on gastric roar. There’s a moment of silence when it’s over, presumably for the last of Dean’s dignity.

“Why don’t you come in with me?” Cas says gently.

“Nah, I should go,” Dean tries, but Cas is already steering him into the classroom. There’s more green carpeting in here, and the chairs are arranged in a circle. Outside the window, storm clouds brew. He tries to figure out if he knows anybody here, but all the faces are kind of slipping together.

“Here,” Cas murmurs in Dean’s ear, helping into one of the seats in the circle. “I’ll get you something to eat.” Dean watches in horror as Cas reaches into a plastic bag on what would be the professor’s desk and pulls out a liter of Coke Classic and a giant container of Double Stuf Oreos. The thought of putting any of that crap in his body makes his throat swell the way it does before he throws up. He takes the proffered cup and plate of cookies because he has no choice, and holds them awkwardly on his lap.

“It’s seven,” Cas says to a red-haired girl, sliding into an empty spot across from Dean.

“All right!” she says, shutting her laptop and sliding it under her seat. “I’m Charlie, she/her/hers, and this is Castiel, my co-captain. I see a lot of new faces this year, which is great!” She beams around the circle at the twenty-or-so students. Dean wonders why she runs this club, when she has so obviously never been unhappy a day in her life. “Is everyone okay if we go around and introduce ourselves, and then Cas and I will talk a little bit about what MHAS is?” There are various noises of assent, and Dean surreptitiously puts his food on the ground. A shock pings through him when his eyes meet Castiel’s, and Dean tightens his lips belligerently.

“Can we add an ice breaker?” says a nervous-looking kid with giant, liquidy eyes. “Like what our favorite class is or something?”

“That’s a very good idea,” Castiel says in his gruff voice.

“Please don’t let it be that _what kitchen utensil are you_ shit,” Dean says without thinking. “We get it, you’re a spork.”

Castiel gives a low laugh. “All right, Dean. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Uh…” Dean wants to scrunch down in his chair, but that’s not the Winchester way, so he squares his shoulders and plants his feet firmly on the floor. “Not at the moment.”

“We could say what disorders we have?” suggests a girl with an open journal on her lap. “Because I know mine are, like, a big part of my identity.”

Great. Awesome. If Dean knew that this was going to be a game of Who’s The Most Fucked Up, he wouldn’t have come. This chick probably wrote slam poetry or something.

A lanky kid with a half-assed attempt at a beard raises his hand. “Why don’t we do one fun fact about ourselves? That’s a classic.”

“That sounds like a fair compromise,” Charlie says, and Dean wonders if she’s a psych student. “Charlie, she/her/hers, and I LARP.” Dean’s about to ask what that is when Castiel introduces himself.

“I know some yoga,” he says, and, shit, this is supposed to be a fun fact, and Cas looks like he’s at a funeral.

Predictably, journal girl rattles off a long list of mental health issues, and says things like “Major Depressive Disorder” when “depression” would do just fine. Most people have pretty boring fun facts, so the few with interesting ones stick in Dean’s mind. There’s a blond girl called Jo who won some sort of national shooting championship, and the big-eyed boy, Keven, knows five languages. Dean’s turn is coming up, and racks his brain for something to say.

“Dean,” he says when it gets to him. “He/him/hims. I mean his. Not hims. Um.” There are some severe blind spots in his vision, and he blinks hard. Why the fuck can’t he see anything? “My fun fact…my fun fact…” There’s a rushing like the fucking Pacific in his ears, and he vaguely hears something that might be his name. The room is shifting around him, and he realizes it’s because he’s walking, and there’s a presence around his arm, and he stumbles and then the air is cooler and he sinks to the floor.

“Dean,” a voice says in his ear. “You’re hyperventilating.” There’s still that presence on his arm, and for a stupid moment, Dean thinks it’s Sammy. But his breathing is already returning to normal, and he sees that he’s out in the hallway, and it’s not Sammy by his side, but Cas.

“Fuck,” Dean mutters, digging his fingers into the carpeting. “I need water.”

“I’ll be right back,” says Cas, and retreats into the classroom. Dean considers making a run for it, but the only thing that would make this situation more embarrassing would be to faint halfway down the hall. He rests his head against the wall and stares at the door opposite. Room 18, History Chair. Room 17’s door opens and closes again, and Cas presses a cup into Dean’s hands.  
“No way,” says Dean when he sees what’s in it. “This is Coke, Cas.”

“You don’t drink soda?”

“No way, man. That shit rots your teeth.”

Cas looks unimpressed, but takes the cup the the water fountain. Dean watches him pour the brown syrup down the drain and rinse it out a few times before filling it with good old-fashioned water. Dean knows some people online that wouldn’t touch a disposable cup that once had soda in it, but since he’s fucking normal, he accepts the water.

“Do you often have panic attacks?” says Cas, sitting cross-legged in front of Dean and leaning in. There’s a small frown on his face, like he’s studying something.

“That wasn’t a panic attack,” Dean says. He rolls the now-empty cup between his hands. “Not everything is some mental mumbo-jumbo BS.”

“If you think a panic attack is mental mumbo-jumbo BS, you might have some trouble with this club,” Cas says wryly. “Our mission statement is to bring better mental health facilities to campus, so sometimes we do talk about mental health conditions.”

“You’re right,” says Dean. “Dunno what I was thinking. I’m gonna go.”

“Wait.” Cas puts his hand on Dean’s knee and, perhaps realizing this was the sort of familiar gesture new acquaintances don’t make, withdraws it almost immediately. “What did you have for lunch, Dean?”

“Lasagna,” says Dean, and blinks his eyes hard to cancel out the lie. He hopes Castiel doesn’t notice—he doubts Castiel would realize that Dean had a reason for the blink, but he might think it was a tell.

Which it was, in a way. And now Cas is staring at him, and Dean has to click his throat, so he does, and now that he’s done it once, he has to do it at least two more times, but eight more times is preferable, and he puts his hand over his mouth while he clicks like that will stifle the sound. He wishes he could do them fast, but doing them fast is almost as bad as not doing them at all. And then—holy hell—the blinks start again. Castiel must know that something bizarre’s going on here, but he just smiles and says, “Why don’t we go get some coffee?”

“Nah, it’s fine, you got a club to run. I’ll just—”

“I insist.” Cas’s voice is firm. “The club will be here next week.” Is it Dean’s imagination, or is Cas implying that Dean might _not_ be here next week? He wants to say no, but he also wants to say yes, because as girly as it might be, he doesn’t want to be alone.

***

Dean was sort of expecting Cas to take him to some sort of underground hipster café, but they go to the Starbucks right off campus. Castiel gets them both hot chocolates, and Dean’s not sure how to protest. When they sit at a table in the corner, he pries the lid off and stares down into the boiling brown depths. He hates that he knows exactly how many calories it has. He puts the lid back on and takes a fake swig, even fakes surprise at the heat.

“I’d like it if you could take a real sip,” says Cas, and Dean glares at him. Figures this guy is some sort of Jedi mind-reader.

“Yeah, whatever,” says Dean, not touching the cup. “You got a reason to bring me here? Because I gotta warn you, man, I don’t do feelings conversations, and I sure as hell don’t do them with strangers. And I’m fine, by the way. No nutcase here.”

“Having an eating disorder doesn’t make you a nutcase, Dean.”

Dean’s usually cold, but he suddenly runs hot. His armpits the palms of his hands start to sweat. And then, Hallelujah, the strains of Styx’s _Renegade_ drift tinnily from the phone in Dean’s pocket. Sam. Fuck, can he do this right now? He sucks in a quick breath and picks up.

“Sammy!” he booms, standing up and immediately collapsing back into the chair. Castiel makes a move to help, and Dean waves him off. “What’s up? Anything good happening? Any reason you’re calling?” There’s a silence on the other end, and Dean realizes his hands are shaking. He can hear breathing, he can definitely hear breathing, but there’s no voice attached, and he clings to the phone. “Talk to me Sammy.”

“I had a nightmare,” says Sam, and a sense memory flashes into Dean’s mind: sweat on the cheap motel sheets, a fever burning against the back of Dean’s hand. He has to work to slow his breathing.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” says Sam. “Just wanted to hear your voice. But I better go. It’s a school night.”

Dean can’t help but smile because that’s Sammy all the way through. “Okay, kiddo. Don’t miss the bus.”

“I drive to school now, Dean.”

“Oh. Right.” He’d forgotten about Sammy’s driver’s license. Jesus, the kid was growing fast.

“I’ll talk to you soon?”

“Sure. Hey,” Dean adds before Sam can hang up, “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Dean holds the phone up to his ear for a few seconds after Sam hangs up. He doesn’t really feel like talking to Castiel right now.

“Was that your brother?” says Cas, when Dean bites the bullet and puts down the phone.

“Yep.” Dean slides his hot chocolate from hand to hand. And then he does it two more times, because Sam might be okay right now, but he needs all the help he can get. “Look, I really have to go. See you around, Cas.” It’s hard, but he manages to walk in a straight line out the door. To his great relief, Cas doesn’t follow him.

***

The next time Dean sees Cas is two days later, in film. They’re watching _Psycho_ today as part of their noir unit, which Dean’s seen a million times in a million different motels across America. He chooses a seat in the back of the lecture hall—it’s a popular class—and puts his head down on the table.

“Is this seat taken?” It’s that damn gravelly voice, and Dean almost doesn’t answer.

“No,” he says, head buried in his arms.

“I hope you’re not as lonely as you seem.”

Dean sits straight up, his mouth open in outrage. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Cas has the gall to look surprised at Dean’s reaction. “You appear to be a very lonely person, and I was hoping my assessment was wrong.”

“I’d like to have a talk with the person responsible for teaching you manners,” says Dean. Castiel’s face creases in confusion.

“What purpose would a talk with my…Oh. You’re saying I have bad manners.”

“No duh, Cas.” He almost says more, but the look on Cas’s face stops him. It’s startled, almost hurt.

“I apologize, Dean. I have been told that my social skills are sub-par. I didn’t realize that asking about your social life would be harmful, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse.” Cas is so solemn that Dean almost feels uncomfortable.

“Whatever. Forget about it. You’re right, anyway. No friends, that’s me.” He says it lightly, but it still hurts. He’s been at college for almost two months, but between oversleeping and not eating, he hasn’t had much opportunity for connection.

“But you do have friends,” says Cas. “I’m your friend.”

“No offense, Cas, but I don’t know you.”

“And yet I consider you a friend,” said Cas. “In all likeliness, there are other people at this college that consider you a friend whom you are discounting.”

Dean grunts. “You telling me to open my heart or something? Not a girl, Cas.”

“There’s nothing gendered about making friends,” says Cas. Dean’s about to retort when the lights dims. The projector flickers on, illuminating a river of dust motes all the way to the screen.

***

So Dean and Cas become friends. Dean fights against it, of course. He doesn’t need people in his life watching what he eats and treating him like he’s got problems he doesn’t have, but Cas is determined. Every morning, he drags Dean down to the caf and makes him a plate of fruit. In the beginning, Castiel’d tried everything from French toast to waffles, but Dean made it clear he wouldn’t eat anything that didn’t grow directly from the ground.

Breakfast, when the calorie counter is still at 0, is the the best time of the day, in Dean’s opinion. He may not have much money, but at least his private currency refreshes itself each day. And now that he’s going to the dining hall with Cas, he’s meeting Cas’s friends. There’s Hannah, Charlie, and Castiel’s older sister Anna.

“Isn’t it weird all your friends are chicks?” Dean says one morning on the way down the stairs.

“You’re very hung up on gender,” Cas says gravely. “You may want to work on that.”

“Great,” mutters Dean. “Another problem that needs fixing.”

So their friendship isn’t exactly blossoming, but it’s existing. They sit next to each other in film and write notes to each other in Dean’s notebook (Castile likes to keep his pristine, but has no problem messing up Dean’s). Dean refuses to go to the dining hall for lunch, but Cas has started surprising him in the library. He always has a snack with him, and sometimes Dean even eats it, just to get Cas out of his hair. On days he does that, he goes straight to his room after the last class and feigns illness if Cas comes around. On days he forgoes Cas’s treat, he meets Cas for hot chocolate at Starbucks.

Fine, maybe their friendship _is_ blossoming. Dean definitely spends more time with Cas than with anyone else, enough time that they’ve started to develop inside jokes and secret codes. “Don’t put the shoe on your head,” Cas will say when Dean looks upset. Or Dean will tap Cas on the shoulder and ask, “Can you check my toe? I don’t think I can bring it on the flight.” Just random stuff that makes no sense to anyone but them. The only person Dean’s ever had this with is Sammy.

Sammy. The kid’s either getting a lot better, or doing a damn find job of pretending. His twice-a-week therapy sessions have been moved down once-a-week, and the nightmares seem to be receding. So why doesn’t Dean feel better? Thinking about Sam, about _that_ , still leaves Dean feeling like the ground’s about to crumble beneath him. It leaves him feeling like he’s gasping for breath in the middle of the ocean. It leaves him feeling useless.

But the circumference of his arm. The gap between his legs. These are things he can measure, and measure again. He can wash his hands and click his throat and starve, and that should be enough. It has to be.

At least he’s not the only one with problems. Castiel and Anna were apparently raised by a crazy megachurch preacher in the buckle of the Bible Belt. “We had to recite our weekly verses before dinner,” Anna says one day, “and if we fucked up or couldn’t remember, we weren’t allowed to eat.”

“You got sent to your room?” says Hannah, raising her head off the grass. It’s a nice day outside, and they’re on the quad, getting as much sunlight as they can before winter.

“No, no,” says Castiel, a dark humor in his voice. “We had to sit at the table and watch.”

“That’s demented,” says Charlie.

Dean swallows and nudges Cas with his shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says. The smile Cas gives him could light a moonless night.

***

On the day it all comes crashing down, Dean is eating breakfast with Castiel’s— _his_ —friends. He’s picking through his orange sections and listening to Hannah talk about her child psychology course when she says, “And people who were sexually abused as children are so much more likely to attempt suicide,” and Dean freezes. Literally freezes, his finger still dug into the orange. He stares down at it, that bright, disgusting, dripping orange, and can’t move. He’s pushing so hard against the paralysis that when it lets go, he sends the bowl with the orange inside flying off the other side of the table. From Charlie’s expression, it’s landed in her lap.

“Are you okay?” she says.

Dean says the first thing that comes into his mind. “I can’t eat that.”

“Dean,” Castiel begins, but Dean whirls on him.

“Shut up,” he says, shoving a finger at Castiel’s chest. “Shut the fuck up.” He tries to open his phone, but his fingers are numb. “I need—I need—”

“What do you need, Dean?” says Castiel, awfully calm for someone who was just yelled at.

Dean closes his eyes against the burning tears. “Sam.”

Castiel speaks slowly and soothingly. “The reception isn’t good in here. Would you rather stay here or go outside where you’ll have more bars?”

Dean almost says _inside_ , he needs to hear Sam’s voice right now, but he also can’t stay in here one more minute. “Let’s go,” he says, his voice rough around the tears. It’s fucking freezing outside, and Dean wonders why everybody’s in goddamn short sleeves. Now that he’s calmed down enough to make the call, he realizes it’s probably not such a good idea. Sam’s in first period right now, and even if he has his phone, Dean doesn’t want to distract him from class. He sits against the outer wall of the caf and closes his eyes. His head is spinning.

“It was my fault,” he says, and he can’t tell why he’s talking. He feels Cas brush against him as he also sits against the wall, and then Cas’s knee is pressed against Dean’s own. He’s keeping his face as still as possible. Dean’s tears fall like a waterfall over unmoving stone, and Cas squeezes his hand and doesn’t let go. “It was my fault,” Dean starts again, the bile climbs his throat. “My dad told me to take care of him, Cas. He left me in charge.

“He—my dad—travelled a lot for work, and he’d bring Sam and me with him. We’d stay in these cheap motels and watch shitty TV and steal snacks from the closest gas station while Dad was out. Sometimes he left us over night.” Dean’s heart spasms, and he pulls his knees into his chest.

“I wanted to go to the arcade, and Sammy didn’t want to. I had to drag him kicking and screaming out the door. I wasn’t allowed to leave him alone.” He can’t believe he’s saying this. He doesn’t think these words have ever left his mouth. “It was evening, but still light out. Two doors down,” and how well he remembers the details, down to the hole in the sole of his right boot, “a woman was about to go into her motel room. She had light brown hair and was wearing a blue dress, and she smiled when she saw us and asked if we wanted to watch TV with her, and I said,” and his voice is gone. His face cracks, twists itself up so hard he can’t do anything to smooth it out. He realizes Cas is squeezing his hand again, and he squeezes back. He knows that if he doesn’t say this now, he might never say it, and he has to get it out. He has to.

“I said that I was going to the arcade, but my little brother _loved_ TV, and, and, and—” Dan’s voice spins out, and he has to stop for a moment. “I let her take Sammy, Cas.” For the first time since he started talking, he opens his eyes. At first it’s all blinding light, and then it resolves into squinty blue eyes and a soft mouth and a hand in his own. “They were missing for two days. She got caught in a McDonalds by a woman who recognized Sammy from the news.”

“Dean,” says Castiel. “I am so, so sorry this happened to you.”

“Happened to _me _? I wasn’t the one—I wasn’t the one who was—she abused him, Cas. My little brother. I was supposed to protect him. He trusted me, and I, I was supposed to protect him, I was supposed to protect him, I was supposed to, I was supposed to—”__

__“How old were you?”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“How old were you when this happened, Dean?”_ _

__His eyes feel like they’re oozing blood instead of tears. “Ten. Sammy was six.”_ _

__Castiel’s sigh is filled with pain. “You were a child, Dean. A child.”_ _

__“So was he,” Dean says viciously._ _

__“And how old was the person who did this?”_ _

__Dean takes a shuddering breath. “Thirty-one. But you don’t understand, Cas, I knew adults were dangerous. I wasn’t some sheltered kid. I raised myself and I raised Sammy and I knew that there were monsters in the dark.”_ _

__“Is this why you don’t eat?” says Cas. “You’re punishing yourself?”_ _

__“You don’t get it,” says Dean, yanking his hand away. “I knew you wouldn’t.”_ _

__“Than help me understand.” Cas’s voice is the barest whisper. “Here.” He wipes Dean’s face with a soft sweater sleeve._ _

__“Dude,” says Dean. “Your getting my snot on your clothes.”_ _

__“It’s washable,” says Cas. “How are you feeling?”_ _

__“Weirdly better,” says Dean. “Calm, kind of.”_ _

__“Crying was cathartic. You’ve probably been needing a good cry for a while.”_ _

__Dean looks up at the rainbow of autumn leaves above them and pulls in his breath like a fisherman winding a spool. “Sometimes I have to do things so Sam will be safe.” He doesn’t look at Cas. “I have patterns. That’s why I click my throat a lot, or blink weirdly. It’s why…”_ _

__“Why you don’t eat,” Cas says._ _

__Dean nods. “Yeah. And, shit, Cas, I know it’s not logical. I know that, but if I also know that if I eat too much, something bad will happen to Sam.” He glances at Cas, who’s looking at Dean with such kindness in his face._ _

__“Dean, have you ever heard of magical thinking?” Dean shrugs. “It’s a symptom of OCD, and it entails thinking you can make things happen if you act a certain way. I once knew someone who lined up quarters on their dresser so they wouldn’t get in a car accident.”_ _

__“Whatever,” says Dean. “My head hurts.” Everything hurts. “I can’t live with this guilt, Cas. I can’t do it anymore.”_ _

__“When you’re ready to get up, I’m going to take you to the mental health center. Do you want to go now or later?”_ _

__The sun is swallowing the sky, and Dean can hear the birds. “Five more minutes,” he says, and Cas nods, and they sit back and watch the sky together._ _


End file.
